Kana’s hometown of Kishiwada is famous all over Japan for their annual Danjiri Matsuri (Mobile Float/Shrine Festival). You can learn more about the historic roots of this wacky festival at the Kishiwada City homepage here.

There is always a Trial Day prior to the actual Matsuri, and we were able to go and enjoy the trial (training) pulls last weekend. I put a short video together that might give you an idea of what the Danjiri festival is like.

Everyone in the community (young and old) gets involved in this event. Our good friend Yai-Chan (of Making of the Mochi fame) was picked for traffic control and you can see him in the video making sure people stay out of the Danjiri’s way.

We are very much looking forward to this weekend’s real Danjiri Matsuri. We need to get up early on Saturday though as the opening pull is at 6:00am! YIKES! Should be good times though as Kana’s Mom is a total Danjiri FREAK! She absolutely loves em!